riveted top skin
We finished riveting the aft top skins. Not so much fun crawling back in the tail cone to shoot all those rivets. After the riveting was done I installed the seat belt anchors and did a little anti-chaff protection of the static tubing back there. I used blind rivets for the last three rivets on either side of the forward skin. There is a large bracket behind those locations that make it impossible to shoot a solid rivet. I had long ago planned for this and ground a small recess in those rivet locations into that bracket in order to be able to even get the blind rivets in there. It worked out fine. The canopy frame went on for the last time and we riveted on the upper brace. I had previously made a cover for that brace with some lights in it. I’m quite happy with how it turned out. Lastly I put on the ELT antenna and made a little clip to hold the antenna. I used a blind rivet to secure the clip with a small plastic washer between the clip and the frame.
